West Chelsea’s Terminal Warehouse lands first tenant

In a breakthrough for the billion-dollar-plus redevelopment of the historic Terminal Warehouse, Convene Hospitality Group signed a 50,000 square-foot lease for a lavish, three-level event space — the first from CHG to be branded under its own name.

The Mallory, named for the 1890s-built landmark’s architect George Mallory, is the first signed tenant at the 1.3 million square-foot industrial-age giant in West Chelsea, which was originally a freight train terminal and later housed the notorious Tunnel nightclub from 1986-2001.

The Mallory will be the 18th Manhattan location for CHG, which operates 39 “hospitality-driven” venues around the world. New York locations include 101 Park Ave., 75 Rockefeller Plaza, and Brookfield Place. The Terminal Warehouse facility will serve as a premier event venue for galas and special occasions of all kinds, as well as a conferencing space and lounge for tenants of the building’s huge office portion.

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CHG president/CEO Ryan Simonetti said, “Large-scale social, cultural and experiential events are the city’s life force. Having spent the last sixteen years honing the operational prowess to run complex, hospitality-led venues, we’re elevating our offering to provide a premier destination to bring bespoke experiences to life.”

Terms weren’t released.

The Mallory, in the building’s northwest corner at 12th Avenue and West 28th Street, will boast space for 550 guests. It includes a reception lounge with a 25-foot bar, a grand event hall with 19-foot ceilings, special suites and gallery space with movable walls. Images are shown on this page for the first time.

CBRE’s Rocco Laginestra represented CHG, while the landlord was repped by a Cushman & Wakefield team including Alan Schmerzler and Steven Soutendijk.

The CHG signing comes at an important time for Terminal Warehouse, a joint venture of Columbia Property Trust, L&L Holding Company and Cannon Hill Capital Partners. The property’s ambitious, adaptive-reuse transformation overseen by architectural firm COOKFOX included a six-story addition on top.

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Although the project cost wasn’t revealed, sources estimated it at $2 billion including the $880 million purchase.

Now, marketing of the rest of the space is under way in earnest.

A 50,000 square-foot lease is nothing to sneer at, but still leaves the brooding brick structure between 11th and 12th avenues and West 27th and West 28th streets with 1.25 million square feet yet to be leased.

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Right now, the only part of the building that’s open to the public is the small, Danny Meyer-operated Porchlight bar and restaurant at the corner of 11th Avenue and West 28th Street — which was there before the partners bought the building.

A project spokesman said, “We are finalizing a series of agreements with a fitness provider and multiple food-and-beverage operators, which will round out a robust tenant amenity program. We are also in active discussions with large office space users and expect to benefit from the city’s shrinking inventory of big blocks of premium workspace.”

Terminal Warehouse epitomizes the adaptive-reuse phenomenon that has brought 21st Century office use to structures a century or more old — notably the monumentally-scaled Starrett-Lehigh Building next door, St. John’s Terminal in Hudson Square now occupied by Alphabet/Google, and the Refinery at Domino in Brooklyn.